Scientists at the University of Colorado medical school have made a breakthrough discovery that could help treat hepatitis C.

Researchers at CU’s medical campus in Aurora figured out the intimate details of how the virus takes over an invaded cell. Hepatitis C “hijacks” the cell’s process for making proteins and instead uses that mechanism to make proteins for the virus, researchers said.

In the last 20 years, scientists have determined that Hep C uses an RNA molecule to take over a cell but the details have been sketchy.

One key detail is reported in a paper published in December in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Jeffrey Kieft, an associate professor at CU medical school’s department of biochemistry and molecular genetics, and his former graduate student, Megan Filbin, worked with researchers at the Tamir Gonen lab at the Janelia Farm Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

They used ultra high-power electron microscopes to take images of RNA molecules from Hep C as they interacted with the cell’s machinery.

“This points the way to developing drugs to fight hepatitis C in ways that current therapies do not,” Kieft said.

Electa Draper is the health writer for The Denver Post and has covered every news beat in a 22-year journalism career at three newspapers. She has a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's in journalism.